


Feathers

by BurningTea



Series: Season 11 fic [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel wings mentioned, Caring Dean, Caring Sam, Castiel Angst, Castiel in the Bunker, Coda, Episode: s11e02 Form and Void, Feeling bitter about Hannah, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mourning, Rowena's Attack Dog Spell, There is now a second part and more parts - that didn't take long - I blame the gin, There may be a second part - depends if I still feel as bitter, feathers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 23:05:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5024074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/pseuds/BurningTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean try to patch Cas up, but some things can't be washed away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am seriously not a happy bunny-dragon at Hannah's end. And I may not be ready to go full-on comfort just now. That bit may happen in the next chapter, if I finish it.

“Help me.”

Dean glances at Sam, unable to move until he checks that his brother can see Cas, too. Sam looks back, the way his eyes have widened and his shoulders tensed telling Dean that Cas is real, Cas is here. It’s not some hallucination conjured from guilt and pain. From loss. 

Cas is on his back, in the same room where Dean left him, where Dean nearly killed him, and he’s asking for help. This time, Dean can offer it.

“We’ve got you, buddy,” he says, kneeling next to his friend and curling a hand under Cas’ shoulder. 

Sam takes the other side, the angel heavier than he was before. It makes no sense. They’ve carried Cas in the past, back when he was a full angel, his Grace waning but still very much a part of him. And Dean’s helped Cas as a human, when he seemed weighty in a way that had everything to do with flesh and bone and nothing to do with Heavenly power. Now, Cas makes little effort to hold himself up, his defeat visible in the lines of his body, and Dean and Sam almost carry him to the nearest table. 

Cas slumps into the seat, reaching to grip the arms of the chair, his teeth gritted against what looks to be a wave of pain.

“Cas?” Dean asks. He reaches out to rest his hand on Cas’ shoulder, to offer comfort, but pulls back. He isn’t sure he has the right, not anymore. 

“What do you need?” Sam asks.

“Hannah,” Cas mutters through clenched teeth. His eyes look unfocused. They’re also bloodshot.

“You need us to get Hannah?” Dean asks. He’s never liked the woman, but he can get her if that’s what Cas needs.

But Cas is shaking his head.

“No. No. Hannah.” He closes his eyes, anguish etched onto his face, and Dean thinks he understands.

“Right. I’m…I’m sorry, Cas. I know she was your friend.”

If that was all. The way Hannah looked at Cas, back when Cas was playing Commander, could have been more than friendship. Dean doesn’t let himself dwell on it. He has no right to.

“What happened, Cas?” Sam asks. “Did the same people who hurt Hannah do this to you?”

Cas nods, then pauses and frowns. 

“No. No. Rowena, she…it’s a spell. I’m not in control of myself. It wants me to kill.”

An icy thought slithers down Dean’s spine, and he shares another look with Sam. It’s not like Cas is free and clear when it comes to being whammied to hurt people he cares about. Maybe Hannah couldn’t stop him, not like Dean managed.

“I went to my brothers for help,” Cas says, and he sound so piteous, so small, that Dean wants to wrap him up and protect him from everything. “They had different ideas. Hannah tried, she tried to stop them. She did.”

He doesn’t sound entirely sure. There’s more to this story. Still, it sounds, now, as though Cas isn’t the one who’s killed Hannah. Dean’s glad for that, at least. The last thing Cas needs is yet more guilt. 

Sam goes to fetch supplies and Dean helps Cas out of his shirt, pausing and pretending he doesn’t see when Cas flinches at Dean’s hands coming towards him. Being back here must be bringing up memories for Cas, too. 

Once the jacket and shirt are off, the tie draped over the table, Dean has to take a minute to gather himself. Cas is a mess. Sure, he’s been beaten up and sliced into before, but the only injury Dean saw on him when he was human was that damaged wrist, and that was bad enough. The rest of the time, Cas’ angel powers at least made things not so bad. This looks like someone took a blade to every part of Cas they could reach, and the bruises round Cas’ wrists are all too easy for Dean’s trained mind to read. Cas was strung up and tortured. 

When Sam brings water and sets the bowl down on the table, Dean sees his brother take in the wounds, sees Sam’s jaw clench and his nostrils flare the way they do when Sam’s having to control himself. The bastards that did this had better already be dead, or Dean’s going to be testing whether getting rid of the Mark has really made him a lot less bloodthirsty. 

Sam washes Cas clean, Dean giving up trying the third time Cas flinches. Cas won’t meet his eyes after that. 

The worst of the wounds need stitching, and Dean’s the neater at it. He almost has Sam do it anyway, but Cas’ body is torn up enough. Neater stitches is a start, at least. Cas closes his eyes, doesn’t look, and Dean isn’t sure whether it’s to avoid seeing the thread through his skin or to avoid seeing Dean so close. Perhaps Cas is pretending someone else is touching him.

Dean’s starting on the second one when he sees it: a burn, hidden by the blood before, but now stark red against Cas’ skin. It’s the shape of a feather, set low on Cas’ belly, small and delicate.

Dean waits until he’s done with the stitches, until he’s sure they’ve done all they can on that front to clean and fix Cas’ wounds, and traces a finger along the edge of the tiny feather. This time, Cas doesn’t flinch. He shivers. His eyes open, but he still doesn’t look at Dean.

“What is this, Cas?” Dean asks.

He feels Sam lean over his shoulder, and feels Sam nudge him.

“On his arm.”

Dean looks, and there’s another feather wrapped around Cas’ bicep, larger and just as red. 

When Dean meets Cas’ eyes, ducking his head to catch the angel’s gaze, he sees the pain and understands.

“How close were you to Hannah when she went?” he asks, his voice as gentle as he can make it.

“She was right in front of me,” Cas says. “I…I knocked her body out of the way to deal with her attacker.”

“Shit, Cas,” Sam says. “You… Will that fade?”

Dean watches as Cas’ jaw tenses, as he turns his head slowly to look at the marks on his skin. He sees the way Cas swallows. Cas doesn’t speak, but his eyes well with tears, a jarring sense of wrongness sliding through Dean at the sight. Cas doesn’t cry. Cas endures. He’s stoic and quiet and occasionally brutal, sometimes earnest to the point of discomfort, but he doesn’t cry.

“They’re not going to fade, are they?” Dean asks. He avoids rubbing at his own shoulder, at the mark that had stayed just as red, just as raised, until Cas had healed it away.

Cas shakes his head. 

He doesn’t complain when Dean wraps the blanket around him, pulling it closer and curling into it as though it has the power to block out everything that’s hurting him. Dean can’t see the marks of Hannah’s feathers anymore, but he knows he won’t forget them. Cas has lost so many of his siblings, and this one has left him marked.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is another chapter. Looks like more wants writing. I'm aiming to just write and post this whole thing today, so we'll see how that goes. And I just drank gin, so that may fuel any depressive notes to this.

Cas is a dark lump in the near-dark when Dean checks on him later. They made him go to bed when he wouldn’t stop shivering, packing blankets and hot water bottles around him. Sam insisted that Cas drink a mug of some odd smelling tea, but Cas crinkled his nose and looked even sicker, and Sam let him stop trying after half of the mug was gone. 

Now, Dean leans in the doorway, a mug of coffee in his own hand, and watches. He has no idea what to do.

“He still sleeping?” Sam asks, arriving next to Dean on near silent feet.

Dean nods. 

“I finished with the last of the books,” Sam says. “Nothing in them.”

The faint tang of gasoline hangs around Sam. He’s sorted through the books the Steins left in that pile, digging for anything that might help. Dean couldn’t bring himself to touch them.

“Couldn’t find anything on-line,” Dean says. 

Neither of them speaks for a while, the silence draped heavy around them. 

“What are we gonna do, Sam?” Dean asks, at last. 

“We’ll think of something. There’s always something, right? We’re not just going to let this destroy him.”

Dean doesn’t share his worries that it already has. Instead, he moves away from Sam, into the darkness, and sits on the edge of the bed. Cas doesn’t move. His hair is spiked by sweat, flattened down in places so that it smears across his forehead. He looks nothing like the angel who strode into that barn, all those years ago, with sparks flying around him and all of Heaven’s power in his eyes. Dean shifts at the thought, at the stark image of everything Cas used to be, compared with what he is now.

The movement of the mattress rouses Cas, his eyes cracking open and fixing on Dean. Dean tells himself that Cas doesn’t shrink further into the blankets at the sight. 

“Hey,” Dean says. “You doing any better?”

It’s a stupid question, but he has to ask something, to at least act like there’s a chance this is going to heal itself. 

Cas stares at Dean, his lips pressed together, and the pain on his face is answer enough. Dean’s hand twitches, wanting to pat the heap of Cas’ shoulder, to offer comfort, but it would be unwelcome. Cas has said he doesn’t hold the beating against Dean, muttered his forgiveness against Sam’s shoulder as Sam more or less carried the angel in to the bedroom, but Dean knows there’s more to it than that. Forgiveness can be a choice, but the memory of what Dean did is still rooted somewhere in Cas’ mind. The guy still flinches when Dean moves too quickly, gets to close without warning.

“We’ll figure something out,” Dean says, echoing Sam’s words and wondering if they felt so much like ash to his brother, dry and gritty on his tongue. “We’ll get you through this, Cas.”

“What if you can’t?” There’s a thready note in there, something that hints at how much pain Cas is in. “What if I can’t fight the spell? What if I-”

“You aren’t going to hurt us.” Dean pushes as much conviction as he can into that. 

He pushes away the memory of being on his knees, of Cas’ raised hand, angel-blade angled down. Cas had pulled back, and he’d been out of it, locked away inside his own head by whatever Naomi had done to him. Now, Cas is conscious, is struggling against it. Still, the thought of everything Cas and he have done to each other stings. They have to be better. They have to stop wounding each other.

“You don’t know that.” Cas has never sounded so weary, like he’d greet Death happily just for the chance to stop, to sleep, to no longer have to drag himself up to face yet another battle.

“I know you.”

Dean hears Sam’s footsteps and tears his eyes away to look at his brother. Sam stops a foot away from the bed and crouches so he’s more or less level with Cas. 

“I found a way to heal a whole town from that Darkness-zombie infection, and I did while I was infected. I’ll damn well find something to fix you, Cas,” he says. 

One of Sam’s hands rests on the edge of the bed, the other on his knee. Both twitch. Dean just bets Sam is fighting the urge to reach out and stroke Cas’ hair back from his forehead. That makes both of them.

“That’s a nice thought, Sam,” Cas rasps. “But I need you both to promise me, you won’t let me hurt anyone else.”

“Cas, you aren’t-” Dean starts, and is stopped by Cas’ gaze locking on to his.

“Please, Dean.” It’s close to begging.

He gives in and sweeps Cas’ hair back, hesitant until Cas settles, and then stroking again, his thumb trailing a little. It’s closer to a caress than it should be, but he can’t bring himself to care about that right now.

“Okay, Cas,” he says, even though it breaks him. “Okay. I promise.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments very welcome. I'm using some ideas from [ExpatGirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl), and I'd love to know how it's all working for people.

It’s almost two days before Cas manages to pull himself from under the blankets. Dean protests, but Cas argues that he feels he’s been buried, entombed, and he needs to at least see a different set of walls. He mutters something about having been caged enough and Dean relents.

Sam fusses, bringing Cas more tea, a different kind he drove over to the nearest big town to get, and Cas takes it, holds it, even though he doesn’t look much like he wants a sip. 

“How you holding up?” Dean asks, and if he feels like a broken record, no-one needs to know.

“Fine,” Cas says, because he learned how to act human from Dean and Sam and they taught him lessons Dean doesn’t now how to undo. “How are you both?”

“We’re good,” Sam says, his tone quelling further questions about them. “Look, you need to tell us anything else you can about this spell. I’ve dug up books from store-rooms round the bunker, and some of them are about some pretty sketchy spell-work, but without knowing more about this, I keep running into dead ends.”

Cas is silent for long enough that Dean thinks he isn’t going to answer. When he does, it’s in a cracked, pained voice. Cas doesn’t like talking about the recent past, that much is clear. Come to think of it, Dean isn’t sure he ever remembers Cas talking about his past with ease, or with much detail. It’s never occurred to him before to wonder why.

“It… She cast something within moments of the spell to release the Mark being completed,” Cas says. “I’m not sure why she had the power to cast it on me, but it feels like my Grace is tearing itself apart. The spell wants me to kill. It wanted me to kill Crowley. When I couldn’t, when I failed… Now, it wants me to tear into everyone I see.”

He shivers as he speaks, despite the fact he’s sweating again, and Dean almost reaches over and tucks the blanket more firmly around Cas where he’s sitting in the chair.

Sam grunts, sounding as frustrated as he looks. This isn’t anything new. It doesn’t give him a clue how to solve this.

“And your other injuries?” Dean asks. “They healed now?”

Cas shoots him a look with so much venom in it that Dean sits back, shocked. Moments later, Cas squeezes his eyes shut and shudders. He visibly pulls himself back from whatever ledge of anger he’s about to fall off, breathing through his nose until his face is less flushed. Dean hopes most of the anger, at least, is from the spell. He’s sick of harming Cas.

“They’re…” Cas tries, but he cuts himself off and grimaces, one hand drifting from the blanket to the point on his chest where one of his attackers shoved an angel-blade partway into his heart. 

“All right,” Dean says, pushing his chair back and standing. “Let’s see. It’s not normal for you to take this long to heal.”

Cas won’t open his eyes and he won’t move his hand.

“Come on, Cas,” Dean says, catching himself halfway through and trying to stop snapping. “I have to see. I can’t help you unless I can see.”

“You can’t help me,” Cas says, but at least he opens his eyes. The red is almost expected now. “No-one can help me.”

“Way to give up,” Dean says. “What would I have done if you gave up on me?”

“Not unleashed the Darkness,” Cas says, being torn apart by a spell doing nothing to shred his bluntness. 

Sam shifts on his seat, the chair creaking as he moves, and Dean has to take a moment to bite down the loathing that rises from his gut, at his brother, at himself, even at Cas. Because Cas has a point. If they find a cure, and it takes something like the price the world is paying to get the Mark off Dean, he knows they shouldn’t take it. Only…it’s a lot easier to take that stance when it isn’t his brother or his angel suffering. 

“Yeah, well, done is done. And we’ll find something better for this.”

“If it risks even one person, I don’t want it,” Cas says. He still has his hand pressed over that wound, the deep grey material of the blanket bunching under his fingers.

“How about we find something first and then you can weigh up how much you think your life isn’t worth?” This time, he gives in and snaps. Cas stares up at him, his eyes wide. “Now drop the blanket and let me see what we’re working with here.”

Cas does as he’s told, snatching his hands away so quickly that the blanket slithers from his shoulders and ends up dragging over the back and arms of the chair, leaving Cas in just the loose T-shirt and sweatpants Dean dug out for him. His feet are bare. They really should get him some bedsocks or something. With his body so scantily clad and his hair still a mixture of standing up and flattened down, Cas looks vulnerable. That’s before even taking into account the shivering, the paleness, the cuts on his face and bruises on his wrists. 

“And the shirt,” Dean says, trying to avoid the feeling he’s abusing Cas’ trust. It’s not like he’s actually making the guy take part in the opening of some disturbing porno. He needs to see how those injuries are doing. Still, the way Cas fumbles with the hem of the T-shirt worries Dean. It’s too much like Cas is actually scared of him. “Let me help.

He eases the top over Cas’ head and manages not to wince at the sight that greets him. The stitches are holding, but the wounds hardly seem better at all. 

“Cas, why aren’t you healing?” Sam asks from his seat on the other side of the table, his tone gentle.

“I am.” Cas is looking down at his own chest. 

“Not that I can see.” 

Dean stares at Cas until the angel looks up, the loss of his eye's brilliance a crime.

“I’m using everything I have to heal the wounds to my true-form,” Cas says. “I can’t spare anything for my vessel.” 

“They hurt your…you?” Dean has never known how to fit the reality of Cas into his head, and this isn’t helping. 

“Of course. They were angels.” 

He sounds sad as he says it, and no doubt the self-sacrificing bastard is mourning the deaths of angels who tortured him. Cas has refused to tell them exact details of what went down, but they’ve got enough from him, in bits and pieces, to know that Cas was cut into and taunted for a long while before he broke free, that he killed his way out, as he’s had to before, that he blames himself for what happened to Hannah, even though by the sounds of it she was somehow involved. What they don’t know is exactly what the angels were after. 

“And how well is that working? Your true-self almost patched up?” Dean asks. “You about ready to start on your human parts?”

He sees Sam give him a look out of the corner of his eyes and ignores it. Like he has the vocabulary to discuss this without it sounding odd. He doesn’t want to think about what Cas really is. To him, Cas is the man in front of him now, a man who has a few extra powers and who is far more invested in Dean than is good for him.

Cas shakes his head, frowning.

“I’m barely managing to keep the injuries from getting worse. With those and the spell… Dean, Sam, I don’t know how much longer I can…” 

He trails off, closes his eyes again, and Dean wonders if Cas is shutting himself away from the world or just doesn’t want the Winchesters to see the ruin of his eyes. 

“You hang in there,” he says, and takes hold of one of Cas’ hands. “You stick with me, Cas. You hear me?”

“Yes. I hear you.” But he makes no move to squeeze Dean’s hand back. 

Dean checks the wounds as quickly and carefully as he can, but as far as he can make out they’re acting like they would on a human, if that. Cas bears it with gritted teeth and no protests, until Dean gets to the burn marks.

“Don’t,” he says, pulling away. The chair confines him, not letting him get away from Dean’s hands. “Just don’t.”

“Why? You aren’t healing, Cas. These are burns. I need to check them.”

“Let Dean look,” Sam adds, as though this needs both parents, and isn’t that a weird thought. “He’ll be as quick as he can, Cas, but burns aren’t any fun.”

Cas slumps, turning his head, and Dean didn’t think he could feel any worse than he already did. He was wrong. 

Under the gauze and bandages the burns are as crisp and red as they were. There’s no sign of pus or anything else. Perhaps they aren’t normal burns. He doesn’t remember the one from Cas’ hand-print needing tending, but Cas brought him back shiny and new apart from that one thing, so some healing must have happened.

“I think these might be all right,” Dean says, stroking a finger around the smaller one, forgetting for a moment that he’s effectively caressing Cas. Again. His finger stills when he remembers and in his embarrassment he blurts out the first thing that crosses his mind. “What’s with these, anyway? I thought the angels didn’t have their wings anymore.”

“Some of us do,” Cas says, putting himself right back in the same group as his attackers again. 

Sam leaves his chair, coming to lean against the table near Cas, his long legs forming a barrier on Cas’ other side. Dean can’t imagine Sam misses the way Cas’ eyes flicker, likely assessing whether he’s trapped. There’s always been something wild about Cas, but now he’s feral. Wounded enough that he’s letting them tend to him, but feral. There’s the sense he might snap and claw at them at any moment, a sense Dean pretends isn’t there and denies whenever Cas hints at it.

“Why do some of you have them?” Sam asks. 

“It depends on our class,” Cas says, as though that explains anything. “And where we were during the Fall.”

“So, what, the higher your rank the more likely you got to keep your wings?”

“In essence,” Cas allows, but he already sounds exhausted and he’ll need to be urged back to bed soon. Or ordered, if the last few days are anything to go by. 

“And, do you have your wings?” Sam asks.

Dean frowns, knowing how much Cas said he missed his wings when he only had borrowed Grace. He isn’t sure what the difference is with borrowed Grace, but he got the feeling it meant Cas was only partway to being his old, angelic self.

“Yes,” Cas says, the word short and clipped.

The brothers share a look and Sam uses his patient, concerned tone of voice when he speaks again.

“And what state are they in?”

Cas doesn’t answer. 

“Cas?” Dean asks, leaning in. He’s already closer than he told himself he’d get, but he feels like, if he can just get close enough, Cas will open up and let him in. “Are they hurting, too?”

No response.

Dean knows what it’s like to suffer such pain you feel you have to keep it all in, for fear it will spill out in a flood and smother everyone around you, but he still remembers that motel room where Cas sat cross-legged on the bed and claimed to be fine. He still remembers hearing that Cas was afraid he’d kill himself. 

“Cas, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but if there’s anything we can do…” he tries.

“There isn’t.” Cas shifts, hunching in a way that makes more sense when Dean pictures damaged wings dragging from Cas’ back. “They’ve been hurting since I got them back.” He sighs and relents. “Those few of us who still have our wings, we have more bone than anything else. They…they’re more or less dead. Some flesh, a few feathers, but… I’m grateful, at least, that you can’t see that.”

There are so many layers to the horror of Cas’ state that Dean has trouble taking it in. Rejecting it, ignoring it, pretending Cas is fine would be so much easier. Only, he’s been doing that for years and it’s brought them here.

“Was Hannah in your class?” Sam asks, still speaking the way he does to the grieving relatives of victims.

It’s not the way they normally speak to Cas, but maybe it should be. They’ve likely never met anyone who qualifies as much as a trauma survivor as Cas does, except for themselves. That’s…a thought he’ll have to come back to, when his best friend isn’t shaking himself apart in front of him. 

“There were no more angels in my class, not by the Fall,” Cas says, as though that should have been obvious. 

“I don’t…what?” Dean asks. “How does that work? I thought there was a whole host of you guys.”

Cas falls silent again, his lips pressed together until they’re white. This time, they can’t get him to talk, and Dean goes back to inspecting the burns. There’s something about them that keeps drawing him back.

“Cas,” he says at last, as he rests the pad of his forefinger over the smaller feather. “What exactly are these? I mean, they look like burns, but there’s something… It’s like there’s a buzz.”

Sam slides from the table and glances up at Cas as though for permission. He doesn’t get it, because Cas has his eyes closed again. Still, Sam touches his own forefinger to the feather, lightly, as though not wanting to usurp Dean’s place. 

“He’s right,” Sam says. “What is that?”

Cas’ lip curls, disgust or bitterness or something else dark and pulsing powering his reply.

“It’s the last of her Grace,” he says. “It’s the last of Hannah, seared into me. I can feel her, all the time. I can feel the moment of her death. Will you leave me alone?”

And he pushes the chair back, lurching up and disappearing out of the room, leaving his blanket on the floor where it falls.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean finds him up in a room they haven’t cleared yet, on a level of the bunker they don’t tend to use. He’s tucked himself into an old leather armchair, folding the dust-sheet that was covering it around himself, and he looks like he’s about to be sick. 

“Cas, you need to go back to bed,” Dean says from the doorway.

The light in here is low, sputtering in from the hallway over Dean’s shoulder. Cas doesn’t look up. The dust-sheet is likely white or cream, and Cas’ skin is far too close to it in colour. He looks like a parody of a ghost.

“No.”

He shouldn’t sound so weak.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“Which part confuses you?” 

Cas turns his head further away as Dean steps into the room and takes a seat on another chair, this one still draped in its sheet. He folds his hands together and rests his elbows on his knees. He needs to keep calm, hard though it is. Sam has reminded him that it’s harder for Cas, reminded him to think how hard it was to stay calm when he had the Mark.

“You want to know which part confuses me?” Dean asks, his tone conversational. “It’s the part where you came to us for help but don’t seem to want us to help you. What, did you just come here to make us watch you die? To make me watch you die?”

“I just wanted to be somewhere where I felt…wanted,” Cas murmurs. “If you would rather I leave-”

“No. You stay the fuck where you are.”

Okay, that came out harsher than Dean meant it to, but the spark of fear when Cas suggested leaving was too much. Dean rubs his hands together, trying to ground himself, and takes a few steadying breaths. 

“You stay here, with me,” he says, not even bothering to include Sam this time, “and you tell me what you mean when you say you can feel Hannah.” He pushes on, hating not being able to give Cas his space when the guy stiffens even more, but having one of his gut feelings that this is key. “Do you really mean there’s some of her in there? In you? What, stuck under your skin?”

Cas frowns, as though he hasn’t thought that through, or maybe he’s just trying to work out how to explain it to Dean. If it means he isn’t snapping at Dean to leave him alone or running away, Dean’ll take it. 

“It…” He starts and stops, shifting in the seat. 

From the way he breathes through his nose, it’s clear he’s having another burst of pain, but Dean’s pretty sure Cas is up for any diversion that means putting off talking about this. When he’s relaxed the infinitesimal amount that means the spasm is over, he glances at Dean as though to check he still has to answer. Dean doesn’t move, not daring to mess with whatever magic is getting Cas to talk to him.

“It’s not something we talk about,” Cas says. “When an angel dies, if you’re close enough, if you’re Grace is…sympathetic, then, sometimes, your Grace… I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You’re doing fine,” Dean says.

Cas nods and presses on.

“Your Grace…takes a piece of theirs. It can make you stronger, but it isn’t pleasant.”

“Doesn’t seem to be making you stronger,” Dean points out, deciding to think about this creepy bit of angel inheritance later, when it doesn’t conjure up images of chopping of pieces of a dead loved one and sewing it to your own body. 

“Hannah was not a Seraph,” Cas says, as though it pains him to admit it. “She wasn’t as strong as me. Not as strong as I used to be.”

“Because there aren’t any more angels like you?” Dean asks. “That mean there aren’t any more Seraphs?”

He doesn’t need Cas to answer. The guy swallows, and it’s all too clear he’s keeping in a sob. 

In one move, Dean is across the room and has Cas folded into his arms, pulling his head onto Dean’s shoulder and soothing a hand through Cas’ hair. He holds Cas as the angel gives in and cries, something Dean didn’t think he’d ever witness, something he wishes he weren’t witnessing now. The universe has to be broken, to have reduced Cas to this. 

Something has to be broken in Dean, that a part of him is glad of the excuse to hold onto Cas. 

“It’s all right, buddy,” he says, turning his head so his words spill into Cas’ hair where the tufts stand up. “I’ve got you. It’s all right.”

Cas is too warm and too cold by turns, as though his body, his vessel, can’t get itself right, and he’s shaking with more than tears. For all the sweat and the clamminess and the knowledge that Cas is on a knife-edge of violence right now, Dean holds on. 

When he’s finally cried himself out, Dean feels Cas sag against him, apparently worn out. He helps Cas to his feet and supports him back down to the room they’ve set up for him, thinking all the while about what Cas has told him. Cas has some of Hannah’s Grace in him. There has to be some way to use that.

He tucks Cas in, strokes a hand through Cas’ hair one more time, and leans down to press a kiss to Cas’ forehead. 

“You sleep, Cas,” he tells his friend, even though he’s pretty sure Cas is out cold. “I swear to you we’re going to get you out of this. You’ve healed us enough times. It’s your turn, now.”


	5. Chapter 5

Cas refuses to get back out of bed.

After insisting on getting up the day before, he now burrows under the blankets until only the top strands of his hair are visible and keeps his words trapped inside himself. Dean has no idea if this is shame at having cried or fear that he can’t be cured or grief over losing Hannah, who it’s becoming clear meant more to Cas than Dean suspected, but whatever the cause the angel won’t leave his bed.

“I don’t know what to do,” Dean says, throwing himself into his chair at the table in the library and dragging the same book towards himself that he’s been reading on and off for hours. Sam has a huge stack on the other side of the table, but Dean keeps leaving to check on Cas and hasn’t got through as much. “He won’t even look at me. He won’t say anything. Sammy, what do I do?”

“Just keep checking on him,” Sam says, not looking up from the book he’s scanning through. “Keep telling him we’re here for him. We aren’t going to stop until we find something and at least we know he’s safe in bed. Might be good for him. I mean, when’s the last time he really got a chance to stop and rest?”

“No idea. But I’m not sure you can call this resting.”

“It’s better than being hunted. He’s spent a lot of time doing that since we’ve known him.”

Sam says it casually, as though it’s just a well-known fact between them, but it jolts Dean. He runs over what he knows of Cas’ last few years, and Sam’s right. 

“Great,” he says. “How’d we let it get like this?”

Sam doesn’t answer right away, turning the next page and staring at it for a while, his brow furrowed. 

“I don’t know,” he says at last. “I suppose we always had a lot to deal with ourselves.”

“Yeah, but we always called Cas when we needed help. How often did we make him stop and tell us what he needed?”

“We’ll help him now,” Sam says, but he sounds troubled by it.

“Tell me you’ve got something.”

Dean looks down at the notepad Sam sends across the table at him, turning it to get a better look. It’s covered in notes and sigils and drawings. There’s a sketch of a feather.

“What’s all this?” Dean asks. “Assume I’m running on three hours sleep in two days and break it down for me.”

Sam clears his throat and sits up straighter, pushing his hair out of his face. He doesn’t sound certain, but he’s putting on a decent enough show that anyone who didn’t know him well might fall for it.

“Hannah’s Grace might be the key. Far as I can make out, and I’ve raided some really specialised books on angelic lore and spell-craft, there’s a chance that Grace might be free of the spell.”

“What, like a bubble of untainted Grace?”

Sam nods. 

“Yeah. Cas said it’s been absorbed, but then why can we still see those marks? See, I’ve looked up that whole Grace-leftovers thing specifically and near as I can make out the feather marks only last until the angel takes in the pieces. Cas hasn’t taken Hannah’s Grace as his, yet. He must be preserving it.”

“You think he doesn’t want her to be gone? But, wait, he said he can feel her dying. Does that keep happening, or is just because he hasn’t eaten up her Grace yet?”

Sam pulls a face. It says a lot about Cas and his capacity to increase his own pain.

“Probably it’d stop if he just accepted her Grace. And it might give him the edge he needs to heal up a bit, but if he just takes it in it’ll get tainted.”

“Then what good is it?” Dean asks, even though a bit more strength is still something Cas needs. “We need a cure, Sam. Come on, you found a way to get the Mark off my arm. You can find a way to kick Rowena’s shitty spell from Cas.”

Sam’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t respond in the same tone Dean’s using.

“Three hours of sleep isn’t enough, Dean,” he says instead. “If Cas won’t get out of bed, why don’t you go and get in bed? Get some rest yourself. I’ll keep working on it.”

For a few, stretched out seconds, Dean thinks Sam’s telling him to go and get in bed with Cas, and he feels his mouth drop open a little. But no, of course Sam will mean Dean should get in his own bed. 

Instead, he goes back to Cas and tells the stubborn bastard that if he wants to hide under the covers forever he can at least budge up. Cas doesn’t move, so Dean thumps the other pillow and crams himself into the space that’s left, his arms crossed over his chest as he stares up into the dark. He’s going to lie right here and wait until Cas breaks and speaks to him. Right here. It’s more important that he’s keeping an eye on Cas than it is that he sleeps, anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean jolts awake to find Sam leaning over him, his hand still on Dean’s shoulder.

“Dean, what are you doing sleeping in here?” Sam asks.

He’s about to ask what Sam’s talking about, but the shapes around him aren’t right and there’s a warm weight next to him in the bed. Right. Cas. 

Sitting up, he looks round to check on his friend and finds Cas has turned towards Dean at some point, his head far enough out of the blankets that Dean can see his face. He doesn’t look any better. 

“Wake him up,” Sam whispers. “I think I’ve got something. I’ll be in the library.”

When Dean reaches out a hand and strokes Cas’ hair back, the angel jerks awake, snarling for a moment before he catches himself. Dean pulls his hand back and shushes him.

“Hey. Hey, Cas, it’s just me. Time to get up, buddy. Sam says he’s got something.”

He thinks Cas might be about to refuse, but after a bit of coaxing he manages to get Cas up and into a clean set of clothes. He tries not to spend too long looking when Cas is without a shirt, but it’s hard not to at least check on the wounds. They aren’t any better.

“Come on, put these on, too.”

Cas stares at the socks as though he isn’t sure what they are, and Dean sighs and kneels on the floor, taking one of Cas’ feet and setting it in his lap. Cas tries to pull his foot away, but Dean circles Cas’ ankle with his fingers and maneuvers the first sock into place. After that first attempt to stop him, Cas gives in and watches Dean get the socks on, a puzzled look on his face. 

“There you go,” Dean says, patting Cas’ calf and rising to his feet before he can let himself think too much on what he’s just done. “Let’s get going.”

Cas lets himself be guided into the library after that, perhaps too taken aback by Dean partially dressing him to protest. Sam looks up and smiles, but it’s more worried than anything. 

“Hey, Cas,” he says. “Come and get settled. I think I have an idea.”

Cas watches Sam’s face as the idea’s explained, the red of his eyes and the clammy paleness of his face joined by a mulish expression as Sam goes on. When Sam asks what Cas thinks, the angel answers with one word.

“No.”

“But Cas, it sounds like it could work,” Dean says. “There some reason you think it won’t.”

“I’m not doing it,” Cas says. “No.”

Dean exchanges looks with Sam, who looks completely thrown. From the dark circles under his eyes, he’s been looking into this the whole time Dean’s been sleeping, and now Cas won’t even entertain the idea.

“Why not?” Dean asks. 

“I told you, if it hurts even one-”

“It won’t hurt anyone, Cas,” Dean breaks in.

“It will hurt Hannah.” Cas’ tone says that’s final.

“Cas,” Sam says, speaking carefully, “Hannah’s already dead. I’m sorry. I know she was your friend,” and Sam hesitates on that, as though it’s occurred to him to wonder if there was more to it, “but she’s gone. And you have a chance to live, if you’ll just-”

“I said no.”

The last time Dean heard those words, in that tone of voice, Cas was refusing to go back to Heaven, to where Naomi had him on a leash. He wishes he’d pushed harder then. He isn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Slowly, he reaches out and waits to see if Cas will flinch away. When Cas doesn’t react except to slide his eyes sideways until he’s looking at Dean, Dean closes the last few inches and settles his hand on Cas’ shoulder.

“Cas, can you tell us why not?”

He sees the tears again, threatening to fall, but Cas manages to keep hold of them this time. His voice cracks when he speaks.

“It’s the last piece of her I have.”

“You’re the last piece of you I have,” Dean says, and he doesn’t care that it makes little sense. He has to get through to Cas. “Cas, Hannah wouldn’t want you to die, not after everything. She wouldn’t want you to suffer.”

At that, Cas’ breath hitches.

“She helped them,” he says, and Dean feels the pain in that phrase. “She didn’t want to. I don’t think she wanted to. But she did. She said… Dean, she said the other angels hate me. And now she’s gone. And all of my brothers and sisters hate me. And she was the only one left who might not have done, and you want me to use up the last pieces of her. Why? Why won’t you just kill me?”

Dean wants to ask won’t Cas dying kill the last pieces of Hannah, too, but he supposes Cas knows that. The point there is that Cas wouldn’t have to go on knowing it’d been done. But Dean would have to go on without Cas, and he’s tried that, more than once, and more than ever he knows that he can’t do it again. He doesn’t want to do it again. 

“Because Sam and me, we’re your family,” he says, his thumb rubbing circles against Cas’ shoulder. “We need you here. I need you here. You can’t bail on me, man. This has a chance to work? We gotta try it.” As Cas continues to just stare at him with his eyes full of tears, Dean breaks. “Please, Cas. Don’t leave me.”

He can feel Sam watching them, staying silent, and he’s grateful. Sam and Cas are friends, brothers, but they all must know that there’s more between Cas and Dean, some extra facet that hasn’t been spoken about but has been there, growing stronger, for years. Sam will grieve if they lose Cas, but Dean will be hollowed out.

“Please, Cas, just…just try. For me. For us.”

Cas tilts his head as though that will mean he can work out what Dean means better. But, surely, Cas has to know. This isn’t something only Dean feels. Is it?

“You…you need me to stay?” Cas asks, the words slow and shaky.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Why? I have caused you so much pain.”

“Yeah, well. Love is pain, right?”

He realises what he’s said as soon as the words slip out, thinks about calling them back, about throwing out other words to disguise them, but he’s too tired of fighting this, of fighting the whole damn universe, and he leaves them out there on their own. 

“Love?” Cas asks. 

Dean’s faced all manner of now-or-never situations before, with stakes from his own life to the life of the whole world, and there’s a sense of peace that settles on him sometimes, when he knows there’s no more running, when it’s this or give in. Something of that peace settles on him now.

“Yeah, Cas,” he says. “Love. Not a word I throw around. But you and me? We got something going on here, whatever name we want to give it, and I don’t want to do this without you. I get it, if you don’t feel the same way, but I’m begging you to at least try what Sam’s saying. Use what Hannah left you and try to live.”

“Love,” Cas says again, as though he isn’t sure what the word means.

It isn’t how Dean thought he’d say this. Hell, he thought he’d never say it. But now he has, and he’ll roll with this, however it goes. If it keeps Cas alive, then it’s worth it, even if the angel tells Dean he doesn’t feel the same way. 

“I…” Cas stops and blinks, reaches up to rub his eyes. “I don’t want to use the last part of her this way, Dean.”

“I know,” Dean says. “But please don’t throw yourself away here. It’s all we’ve got, so, please, think of it as her helping you, one last time.”

The pause is longer than Dean likes, but eventually Cas nods. He looks distraught, but he nods, and Dean finds he can breathe a little easier.


	7. Chapter 7

The spell takes hardly any time at all. Sam drops the last ingredient into the bowl and chants words in Enochian that Cas has read over and corrected. 

On the bed, Cas tenses, and Dean wants to step forward and take Cas’ hand. He doesn’t. He’s been warned how wrong this could go. Cas wanted him to leave the room, but when Sam said it would be better to do this with Cas lying down Dean trooped into the bedroom with them and refused to leave. After finally telling Cas how he feels, no way he’s leaving the guy.

The bowl lights up, white light spilling over the lip and pooling on the bed-covers. It looks like liquid Grace. When it reaches Cas’ hand, the angel stiffens. There’s one, drawn out moment of silence and then the screaming starts.

Sam rounds the bed and grabs hold of Dean just before Dean flings himself at Cas.

“No. We knew this wouldn’t be pretty,” Sam says into Dean’s ear, his chest against Dean’s back and his arms around Dean’s chest. “It just has to work.”

Dean makes himself nod, makes himself not fight to get free, and feels Sam’s arms slip away.

It takes minutes for the light to fade and Cas’ voice cracks into silence before it does. Dean can see him arcing in pain on the bed, can see shapes in the light he knows will come back to him later. 

When the light’s gone, Cas lies panting on the bed and Sam leaps forwards, wielding an angel-blade. With a care that assures Dean his brother has his own kind of love for Cas, Sam angles the tip at Cas’ stomach, where the feather-burn is lit up with pure white light. 

Dean almost expects it to explode when Sam cuts into Cas, slicing round the feather until it comes free. 

As soon as the light is separate from Cas, Sam tips it into the bowl and slams a lid on it.

“Stay with Cas,” he says, and carries the bowl from the room at little less than a run. 

According to his plan, he’ll use holy oil and fire to destroy the feather and, with it, the spell. Hopefully. If their spell has worked.

Dean moves to the bed and sits down, leaning over Cas. The angel isn’t moving beyond that laboured breathing. He still looks clammy. His eyes are closed and Dean can’t tell if they’re blue again. 

“Cas?”

No answer.

“Cas? Come on. Don’t do this to me.”

Dean strokes Cas’ hair back from his face and pauses with his hand on Cas’ cheek. 

“Don’t stop,” Cas mutters. His voice is hoarse, but there’s none of the barely controlled rage and desperation Dean’s been hearing for the past few days.

“What?”

“I said don’t stop.” Cas’ eyes open, and Dean sags with relief at the glimmer of blue. “That’s surprisingly nice.”

“Oh, you like having your hair stroked?” Dean asks, moving his thumb across Cas’ cheek. “You want me to do that again?”

“Yes,” Cas says, and he sounds irritated. “Kindly do as I ask.”

There’s a sound like a storm imploding from somewhere in the bunker and they both freeze until Sam’s footsteps return.

“It worked,” Sam says, appearing in the doorway. “Took more holy oil than I thought it would, but… Oh. Right. I’ll, er… Are you feeling okay, Cas? Did it work?”

“Yes, Sam. I think so.” Cas pushes himself up onto his elbows and looks at Sam. 

With his hand fallen from Cas’ face to land on the bed, Dean twists to get his own look and sees his brother looking relieved and uncomfortable.

“You’re sure?” Sam asks. His body is angled as though he’ll be gone as soon as he’s certain.

“As sure as I can be,” Cas says. “Thank-you, Sam.”

“Anytime, Cas,” Sam says. “You two, er, play safe, all right?”

And he’s gone before Dean can yell at him. Instead, he turns back to Cas and smiles, trailing his hand up Cas’ arm and back to his head.

“Looks like we have Sam’s blessing,” he says, and doesn’t even care how cheesy it is. “And you were saying you wanted me to do this.”

He strokes his hand through Cas’ hair more slowly this time, feeling the strands and watching Cas’ eyes half close in what looks like pleasure. It’s a good look on him. 

“Yes,” Cas says. 

“Okay,” Dean says. “I can do this. Here, lie down properly.”

He scoots himself onto the bed until he’s settled against the headboard with Cas cradled against his chest and strokes the guy’s hair again. And again. And again until he feels Cas relax, his breathing evening out and deepening. 

There’s plenty of other things he wants to find out if Cas likes, but right now he figures he has several years of rest to catch up on and lots of healing to do. They both have. For now, he’ll lie right here and start to show Cas that he’s wanted, that he’s safe. That he’s loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. For now, this is done. 
> 
> For some reason, it turned into me challenging myself to write and post a fic within 24 hours, and I have. With 32 minutes to spare.
> 
> I may well add to this or edit it - does this last bit seem a bit truncated? - to pick up on a few plot points and maybe to include some smut, but for now I am considering this a completed coda-fic. 
> 
> Let me know how I've done.

**Author's Note:**

> I've set up a collection for Destiel Ghost Stories. We're going to post on Christmas Eve and bring back a fine old tradition, but with hunter/angel love. Check it out if you're interested.
> 
>  
> 
> [Ghost Stories](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/GhostOfChristmasDestiel)


End file.
